HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s fifth-largest smartphone maker, has begun selling a smartphone in Chongqing, China, that enables mobile payments using near field communication (NFC) technology, aiming to gain a foothold in the fast-growing mobile banking market.
The “Jiang Yu banking” phone, priced at 4,680 yuan (US$732), allows remote bill payments and contactless payments.
The HTC phone went on sale last week through the Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank (重慶農村商業銀行) in Sichuan Province, a recent statement from the bank showed.
The bank’s customers can also use the smartphone like a digital wallet to pay for mass transportation in Chongqing, as well as at point-of-sale (POS) machines in designated department stores, restaurants, supermarkets and movie theaters.
The number of these POS machines in Chongqing will increase to more than 9,000 by the end of this year, the Hong Kong-listed bank said.
The Economic Observer quoted Dennis Chen (陳敬宏), head of the Asia and China Enterprise Department of HTC, as saying that HTC had confidence in its products and “will launch similar phones with more banks.”
The move came after HTC unveiled a four-inch “HTC Stunning” smartphone last month with China UnionPay Co (中國銀聯), China’s only credit card network.
The Android-powered HTC Stunning can be used to make NFC payments at 345,000 POS machines in China as of June 30, and these machines are likely to increase to 700,000 by the end of this year.
Chinese mobile banking service subscribers have exceeded 7 million during the first half, with total trading volume growing 238 percent year-on-year to 709,000 entries and total transaction amount up 574 percent to 44.9 billion yuan, according to China-based IIMEDIA Research.
Shares of HTC tumbled 6.04 percent to NT$638 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
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